And at a community meeting last night, the developer showed 4 or 5 iterations of the plan, none of which included ANY marine businesses. The boatyard, chandlery, sailmakers, metalshop, electricians etc.- all gone. 100% mixed retail and residential.

I had the same question. There's no parking for the marina. Only folks that live there (not in the marina, but on land) get to park. Starting to look a whole lot like southern Florida. and OMG Svendsens would close or have to move. That is bad news.

If you're sitting here reading this thread and you haven't done anything like write to the Alameda City Council members, with a copy going to the City Clerk, then...ahhhhh... well, you think about that.

Each council members name is a link to their own page which has an e-mail address in it. Keep in mind that e-mail is nice but e-mails can be deleted. However, WRITTEN LETTERS especially if a copy is sent to the City Clerk, can not be ignored or deleted.

I would suggest that folks keep letters to two paragraphs and stick to two or three salient points. Half a page or three-quarters of a page is plenty. Do not imply that you are from Alameda if you don't live there. For heavens sake don't write four pages including your conspiracy theories about the Feds and aliens, OK?

I can hear it now... "I'd write but I don't want to get booted, too".

My friend, are you not paying attention? If Alameda Marina Development LLC is not stopped, you're going to GET BOOTED ANYWAY. Keeping your head down and doing nothing makes you the little puppet, squeezing out another 12 months (maybe) of relief from the merciful hand of the Developer. How long until YOUR 30-day notice is in the mailbox, huh?

Alameda city is hungry for money and that area is a great piece of land to development. They start close to Fortman Marina building houses at 1 millon each.. Seems like Svendsen is gonna close.. or reduce it.. a lot of people gonna lost their jobs.. I used to be a living a board during the '90 and was a great place to work and live! Now I see how the old estuary is changing.. 5 Ave. marina is almost gone, the north part of almar marina is gonna be closed next year... In few years estuary is gonna be just condos and houses... By the way, the mill close to park ave is scheduled to be closed with the cement plant in 4 years...

I loved the picture of people repairing boats, welding, and so on, with the description that these are activities not in-line with Alameda's future vision. I am going to assume that they WILL be happy to continue to take the property tax on all the boats in the marina, but they will not allow the repair of the aforesaid boats.

Gentrification is rarely gentle, those in the path of it are truly SOL and going to get f**ked over.
Shortsighted and corrupt too, follow the money...
With a huge effort, those directly impacted (in this case local yotties and ancillary) might, might have some effect if they get really noisy.
I wish y'all buena suerte, it's gonna be all uphill.

I don't live anywhere near there, never even been near there, but I've seen the same kind of machinations play out elsewhere. It even surfaces in our little backwater from time to time, all it would take is the slightly wrong set of politicians and circumstances and a planetary alignment or something.

The City Council meeting last night was well attended by fans of the marina- I'd say maybe 50 or so stayed until the bitter end (the agenda item wasn't called until well after 11:00 p.m. and discussion of it didn't end until after 12:30 a.m.) and the boating community was well represented by over 20 speakers who were eloquent and passionate. Interestingly, Bill Poland and his lackey left about an hour before the agenda item was reached and did not return. I'm sure he would have been interested by the position the Council took on the matter. The take-away was (IMHO) that the City Council is going to investigate modifying the MX zoning overlay at the Alameda Marina property, with an eye towards maintaining the vibrant, historic and irreplaceable marine facilties there. It is clear that redevelopment at the Alameda Marina is not a done-deal and Bill Poland may not get everything (or anything) he wants.

The Alameda Marina property is sprawling and very low density use so is a developers wet dream. All of the space is in use and not abandoned, however. There are other abandoned commercial properties just down the street which would be equally prime for development without the disruption to the ethos of the Alameda boating scene. The Marina property should be able to be developed into relatively high density housing while still allowing boatstorage, Svendsens and other boat oriented spaces, the marina and parking. Won't be the chock a block design that is proposed. Hopefully the City Council will not let their greed for tax revenue ruin the ambience of Alameda.